[Ads-l] bucko = 'beaucoup'

[Margaret Winters]

'blaguer' means to 'joke', 'kid around', so 'sans blague' (literally 'without' 'joke') means 'no kidding'.  I suspect Pei meant (if he were writing today) 'I couldn't make this up'.


----------------------------
MARGARET E WINTERS
Former Provost
Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI  48202

mewinters at wayne.edu



________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2018 5:12 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: bucko = 'beaucoup'

> 'mercy buttercups'

Ne blague pas!*


*Read this in one of Mario Pei's books - The Story of Language? - back in
the '50's. Forgotten what it means.

On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 12:42 PM, Margaret Winters <mewinters at wayne.edu>
wrote:

> I'd forgotten 'mercy buttercups', mercifully so given the number of years
> I taught French.  There is also 'merci buckets', alas.
>
>
> ----------------------------
> MARGARET E WINTERS
> Former Provost
> Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI  48202
>
> mewinters at wayne.edu
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of W
> Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2018 3:07 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: bucko = 'beaucoup'
>
> << Mercy buttercups! >>: Sacred Heart HS, Kingston MA, ca. 1965; the fruit
> of three years required French.
> << buku, bookoo >> RVN 1968:  GIs were convinced that <buku> was derived
> from Vietnamese, an essential item in the local pidgin. Most were oblivious
> that the U.S. was just taking over la Guerre Indochine in French Indochina.
>
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--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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